Lesson on Static Electricity

Quick Science Lesson for Elementary Grades

Dec 23, 2008 Jennifer Wagaman

With no advanced preparation, you can teach students about static electricity in fifteen minutes.

If you find yourself with an extra 15 minutes in class, use this easy lesson on Static Electricity. This lesson takes no advanced preparation, providing you have the supplies on hand. You need to have two balloons that are the same size, two pieces of string that are 2 feet long, a piece of wool cloth and a little background information about static electricity.

Background Information on Static Electricity

Static Electricity is an example of opposites attracting. The balloons start out neutral without a positive or negative charge once they are blown up. Once the wool cloth is rubbed on one balloon, giving up some of its electrons, it provides a negative charge that causes the balloons to draw close to each other.

Once they touch, the balloon with the negative charge shares some of its electrons with the other balloon, causing both to be negatively charged. When both are negatively charged, they will repel each other. If you were to rub both balloons with the wool cloth, they would both start out with a negative charge and repel each other when brought close.

Static Electricity Activity

Blow the balloons up and tie each to a string. Call on two student volunteers to hold each balloon steady a couple of inches apart from each other. Ask the class to describe what interaction they see between the balloons. Write down on the board what the students describe, which should be that nothing happens.

Now, take the wool cloth, and rub one of the balloons with it, and have the students hold the balloons close together again. Have the class describe the interaction again. This time the balloons should be attracted to each other at first, and then repel each other. Ask more questions to prompt the students to use better descriptions of what is happening and write it on the board again. Discuss the difference between the two reactions, and see if the students can guess why the balloons interacted the way they did.

Take a few minutes to explain to the students what happened during the experiment. As an extension you can use plastic instead of balloons, and see what the students think will happen. This is a great activity to encourage questions from the students. If you do not know the answers, write them down, and have groups of students assigned to look up the answers and share with the rest of the class.

You may also be interested in quick five minute activities to do with your class.

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Easy Science Experiment